F2: Piastri holds off Daruvala and Zhou for pole position at Monza

Alpine Academy driver Oscar Piastri added four points to his championship lead in Formula 2 Qualifying at Monza with his second successive pole, beating Red Bull junior Jehan Daruvala by 0.041s, while his title rival Guanyu Zhou finished third.

Piastri looked in control throughout, beating the experienced Ralph Boschung to provisional pole in the first half of the session, with Zhou lagging back in eighth.

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Zhou briefly nabbed first from Piastri with two minutes to spare, but the Australian rose to the challenge and retook the position by 0.041s.

Daruvala benefitted from a slipstream to split up the title rivals and set up his first front row start of the season.

Only 0.210s separated the top five, with Red Bull junior Liam Lawson in fourth ahead of Zhou’s UNI-Virtuosi team mate Felipe Drugovich, who took his best qualifying result since Round 1 in Bahrain.

Boschung had fallen to sixth at the flag, ahead of Sauber junior Theo Pourchaire and former Red Bull and Williams Academy driver Dan Ticktum.

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Finishing 10th overall, David Beckmann will start ahead of Red Bull junior Juri Vips in Saturday’s reverse grid Sprint Race 1, which takes place at 0850 local time.

Qualifying set the grid for Sunday morning's Feature Race that takes place at 1025 local time, while the grid for Race 2 at 1445 on Saturday will be set by reversing the top 10 finishers of Sprint Race 1.

For more on F2, visit the official series website.